There are times in everyone's life when things just seem unfair.

For example imagine you are standing in a queue and someone shoves in front of you. You might say something to them. How about if that person then turned around and said that they deserve to be in front of you because they are younger or older than you are. Would that be discrimination against you?

Or what about if they told you they deserve to go first because you were a different gender to them? Or from a different ethnic group? Sometimes it's hard to work out if someone is treating you unfairly just because of who you are.

Other times though it can seem very clear indeed.

Standing up for your rights

A law called the Equality Act 2010 is in force in Britain. This law makes it an offence to discriminate against someone else just because of who they are, for any of the following reasons:

  • someone's gender
  • someone being pregnant or recently having given birth
  • someone being transsexual
  • someone's race, nationality, colour, or their ethnic or national origin
  • someone being disabled
  • someone being lesbian, gay, bisexual or straight
  • someone having a religion or a belief, or someone not having a religion or belief

Even so it's not always obvious to work out if you are being treated more unfairly than someone else on one of those grounds.

One of the first steps to take might be to understand what discrimination can actually look like. To get started you could take a look at Citizens Advice's chart 'Spotting discrimination'. This can help you find out more about what discrimination is and what you can do about it.

Getting legal advice about discrimination

Different organisations like Citizens Advice might be able to help you to work out if you have been discriminated against, and also help you work out what you should do about it.

If you think you want to speak to a lawyer about your situation you may want to contact a law firm that can specialise in discrimination cases.

You can find out about more about finding a lawyer on our types of lawyers page.